Dental Leaders Podcast

Raid Ali arrived in Cardiff in 1998 because a friend told him it was cheaper than London, and never really left. He joins Payman as a specialist implantologist and founder of Restore Dental Group, a five-practice business built from the three practices he and two business partners bought from their old boss, having qualified in Baghdad in 1996 and sat his exams in the UK with no family connection to dentistry at all.He talks openly about ranking fourteenth in the whole of Iraq in his final school exams during wartime, about teaching himself English from scratch after arriving (he remembers struggling just to buy bread), and about the early advice from Chris Barrow that changed how he ran his business: stick to dentistry, delegate everything else. There's a genuinely candid account of his own clinical mistakes too, including an implant placed without enough restorative space, and six stressful months defending a legal claim over a mentee's work he wasn't even liable for.Raid also gets into the detail that's shaped his implant career: why he still refers every zygomatic case elsewhere despite being trained to do them, the French physiologist whose PRF technique changed how he thinks about healing, and why he now considers soft tissue, not implant design, the single most important factor in long-term success. In This Episode00:00:50 – Introduction00:01:50 – Arriving in Cardiff00:03:50 – Growing up in Baghdad00:13:45 – Choosing dentistry00:19:30 – Moving to the UK00:21:00 – Sitting the exams00:25:35 – First impressions of UK dentistry00:28:35 – Buying his first practice00:35:40 – Getting into implants00:38:55 – Mentors who changed his thinking00:50:00 – Advice for new implantologists01:04:00 – Growing to five practices01:12:35 – Blackbox thinking01:24:35 – What grinds his gears01:38:40 – Fantasy dinner party About Raid AliRaid Ali is a specialist implantologist and founder of Restore Dental Group, a five-practice business based in Cardiff. Originally from Baghdad, he qualified in Iraq before moving to the UK in 1998, and now sits on the board of the Association of Dental Implantology, teaches an 18-day implant diploma, and co-founded the Iraqi Dental Community.

Jameel Gardee joins Payman to reflect on more than three decades in dentistry, from qualifying in Glasgow to undertaking advanced restorative training at Boston University and building a private practice centred on digital dentistry.He looks back on the people and experiences that shaped his career, why American dentistry changed his outlook, and how his approach to restorative treatment has evolved. The conversation also explores the pressures facing younger dentists, the value of mentorship and why becoming an excellent clinician takes more than technical ability.Much of the discussion centres on the shift from analogue to digital dentistry. Jameel breaks down the workflows behind modern smile design, from facial scanning and treatment planning to guided preparations, 3D printing and restorative materials. But there's a distinction he keeps coming back to: owning the latest technology means very little if you don't know how to bring it all together.The conversation also takes a more personal turn as Jameel reflects on difficult patients, clinical mistakes and the emotional weight of complaints. With AI and robotics changing the profession, he considers what the next generation of dentists will need to learn and why human connection may become more valuable than ever.Expect honest reflections on clinical excellence, digital workflows, patient trust, innovation, mentorship and the changing relationship between technology and the people delivering care.In This Episode00:00:50 – From Glasgow to Boston00:05:05 – American dentistry and clinical philosophy00:09:05 – Mentorship and younger dentists00:21:25 – Funding further education00:24:35 – Private practice and patient trust00:31:20 – Empowering the dental team00:34:05 – Discovering digital dentistry00:38:00 – Workflows over equipment00:41:25 – The digital first visit00:44:25 – Facially driven treatment planning00:51:30 – Mock-ups and smile design00:53:50 – Guided restorative dentistry00:57:45 – 3D printing and zirconia01:04:25 – Research versus clinical experience01:10:00 – Technology and patient communication01:16:10 – Robotics and the future01:21:40 – Blackbox thinking01:29:15 – Learning and clinical development01:31:20 – Fantasy dinner party01:35:45 – Life outside dentistryAbout Jameel GardeeJameel Gardee is a Glasgow-based dentist and educator known for his work in digital dentistry, aesthetic restorations and smile design. After qualifying from the University of Glasgow in 1995, he undertook advanced restorative and aesthetic training at Boston University.He has since built a career combining private clinical practice with digital education, helping dentists and their teams adopt modern treatment planning and restorative workflows. Through his work with Avant Garde Dentistry, he continues to champion the use of technology to make complex dentistry more predictable and accessible.

Victoria Sampson, saliva diagnostics entrepreneur; Millie Morrison, orthodontic mentor; Pouyan Mehdizadeh, healthcare experience designer; Sahil Patel, Everest climber and cosmetic dentist; and Galip Gürel, veneer pioneer and robotics innovator, share bold stories from dentistry’s edges. Topics range from robotic precision and microscope perfectionism to mentorship, sensory clinic design, Everest’s dangerous descent, startup burnout, and the future of saliva testing.

Kathryn Bell, a general dentist and facial aesthetics specialist, recounts surviving a teenage brain tumour, coma and emergency surgery, then rebuilding her life through dentistry. She discusses survivor’s guilt, NHS burnout and the personal turning point that changed everything. She also explores social media’s impact on self-image, ethical aesthetics, polynucleotides and recognising dysmorphia in patients.

Dipali Dalia is a specialist periodontist who trained at Guy’s and later qualified as a barrister. She recounts moving from teenage legal ambitions to dentistry, then pursuing law in her forties while practising. They discuss referral-based periodontal care, peri-implantitis, the contrasts between dentistry and barrister work, loss, Hindu philosophy, and viewing setbacks as redirection. She also reflects on women, recognition, and equality in both professions.

Bizhan Shokouhi didn't set out to be an oral surgeon, or even to specialise at all. He joins Payman as a specialist oral surgeon and implantologist working across private practice and Guy's Hospital, and teaching on the Bristol MSc in Implants, having spent his first year qualified convinced he'd end up a restorative dentist.He talks openly about the one thing he tells every trainee before they touch an implant, which has nothing to do with surgery and everything to do with communication, and about a denture case that took twenty-odd visits over eighteen months before he admitted defeat and referred it on. There's a genuinely reflective stretch on ambition too: Bizhan's own answer to whether he'd want his own practice is a flat no, and his reasoning, built around contentment rather than potential, runs against almost everything you'd expect from someone this good at his job.Along the way, there's proper technical detail on soft tissue management, bone grafting, and why the first five minutes of a surgery matter more than anything that happens with a suture. And by the end, Payman more or less names the episode for him: was it worth it? In This Episode00:00:50 – Introduction00:01:35 – A typical working week00:04:20 – Becoming excellent00:09:28 – Work-life balance00:14:36 – Getting into implantology00:21:00 – Communicating with patients00:30:39 – Digital planning and AI00:36:52 – Robots and the future00:54:52 – Blackbox thinking01:02:48 – Soft tissue lessons01:05:11 – Building an Instagram following01:12:04 – Mentors in implantology01:14:44 – Why no practice of his own01:19:59 – Best lecture: Martin Kelleher01:22:36 – Fantasy dinner party About Bizhan ShokouhiBizhan Shokouhi is a specialist oral surgeon and implantologist working in private practice and at Guy's Hospital, and a tutor on the Bristol MSc in Implants. He is known for his educational Instagram content on oral surgery and soft tissue management, and previously trained in restorative dentistry and maxillofacial surgery before specialising.

Anita Pradan, a Nepalese, Indian-trained dentist and founder of Phoenix Dental Academy, shares her five-year ORE journey and the hard reality facing overseas clinicians in Britain. She discusses exploitative contracts, Instagram’s polished illusions, mentorship gaps, and why passing exams does not equal clinical readiness. Anita also reflects on burnout, escaping a toxic workplace, building her own academy, and stepping beyond her father’s formidable legacy.

Ben Barter, co-founder of Dental Assembly, built a career connecting dental groups and suppliers despite never practising dentistry. He shares the leap from Open Rooms to a beauty price-comparison startup, winning investment on Dragons’ Den, and launching a new events business. They explore why fun strengthens commercial relationships, the pressure of live events, and the costly Dubai bus failure that taught him to trust his gut.

Bashar Alturk has represented two countries at trampolining — Great Britain, then Jordan — and ruptured both his knees doing it, a year apart, once right before finals. He's also a final-year dental student at Leeds who bought his own phantom head and drill and set them up in his student room because the university wouldn't give him enough practice time.His ADHD diagnosis came late on purpose. His mum spotted it in primary school and refused to let it be labelled, worried about what that label would do to him; he didn't get assessed properly until Covid forced the question. He now credits the delay with making him work harder rather than lean on an excuse.There's a loupes business in here too, run out of that same student room, undercutting the market on price until his own dental school shut it down over a GDC conduct issue. And there's a longer, harder conversation about faith: what he actually believes about suffering and reasons, tested properly the first time his knee gave out weeks before an Olympic cycle.Payman keeps circling one question throughout: what happens when you take the "sink or swim" mentality that built an Olympic athlete and try to run a dental career on it too. In This Episode00:00:50 – Introduction00:02:10 – Growing up in Manchester00:06:40 – Getting into trampolining00:11:53 – ADHD diagnosis00:18:35 – Injuries and setbacks00:33:00 – Sacrifice and family00:41:52 – Faith and meaning00:46:25 – The phantom head00:48:28 – The loupes business01:02:41 – Delegation01:11:56 – Wanting to be known01:19:36 – Choosing a path01:20:41 – Blackbox thinking01:29:47 – Fantasy dinner party01:36:57 – Post-competition blues About Bashar AlturkBashar Alturk is a final-year dental student at the University of Leeds and an Olympic-level trampolinist, having represented both Great Britain and Jordan internationally. Alongside his studies, he founded a student loupes company, served as president of his dental society, and helped organise one of the UK's largest undergraduate dental conferences.

Afzal Haque joins Payman as a specialist endodontist and owner of Stretford Road Dental Practice, along with its referral clinic M41 Indo, in South Manchester, having spent ten years as a general dentist before making the switch.He talks candidly about hating endodontics as a young dentist, the wife who talked him into rotary instrumentation and then, years later, into selling their house to fund three years of specialist training in Liverpool. There's a properly moving stretch on the sacrifice that decision demanded of his young family, and on the culture of fear he encountered as an undergraduate that still shapes how he teaches today.This is also a masterclass in referral dentistry: building trust with generalists, pricing endodontic treatment simply, and why the happiest dentists are the ones who communicate well rather than the ones who never make mistakes.Expect sharp thinking on bioceramics, root canal myths, AI in the surgery, and a properly honest account of growing up as the only brown kid in his primary school class. In This Episode00:00:45 – Introduction00:02:10 – Family background and choosing dentistry00:13:30 – Falling into endodontics00:15:50 – Selling the house for specialist training00:22:55 – Why endo suits him better than general dentistry00:28:25 – Building a referral-based practice00:40:45 – Team, AI and running the practice00:45:35 – Endo heroes and technique00:59:15 – Bioceramics and modern materials01:01:50 – Root canal myths and AI search01:08:45 – Toxic teaching culture01:15:50 – Specialist training and family sacrifice01:24:05 – Blackbox thinking01:35:25 – Robots and the future of dentistry01:38:15 – Fantasy dinner party and growing up in Manchester About Afzal HaqueAfzal Haque is a specialist endodontist and owner of Stretford Road Dental Practice and its referral clinic, M41 Indo, in South Manchester. He spent ten years as a general dentist before training as an endodontist at the University of Liverpool, and now also works as a senior lecturer at UCLan and as a specialist adviser for the CQC.